The only movie reviews you need

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

“A long time ago we
used to be friends.....” Over the course of three seasons
from 2004-2007, a little TV show called ‘Veronica Mars’ earned both
rave reviews from critics and legions of passionate fans around the world.While this addictive, smartly written teen detective neo-noir
created by Rob Thomas (the writer/producer/director, not the ‘Matchbox Twenty’
front-man) never became a ratings success, it garnered a strong cult
following that made this movie possible.You see, ‘Veronica Mars’ was funded via a
kickstarter campaign by fans who contributed over $5.7 million to its
production.A paltry sum by Hollywood
standards, to be sure, but it nonetheless underscored the passion the show’s
rabid fans reserved for the diminutive, street-smart blond Sherlock with a
razor-sharp tongue played by Kristen Bell that’s second only to Sarah Michelle
Gellar’s Buffy. Indeed, a cuter detective there
never was.

‘Veronica Mars’ picks up nine
years after the TV series ended, and we find our feisty young crime-solver
putting her sleuthing days behind to pursue a normal life as an attorney and a
stable relationship with her fiancé Piz.She gets interviewed at a prestigious NYC law firm by Jamie Lee Curtis and
wins her over with the same charm, wit, and smile as she did the rest of
us.Alas, her past catches up with her
when she’s called back to Neptune because her ‘bad boy’ ex-boyfriend Logan
Echolls (now a well behaved ‘officer and a gentleman’ a láRichard Gere, believe
it or not) proved once again that he can draw murder raps like a manure pile draws
flies.Never fear, Logan, Veronica is
here to pull your ass out of the fire again, and she's in fine form even after all these years.It’s as if she never left.

The movie is a reunion of sorts,
quite literally, and we see many a familiar face, including Veronica’s frequent
partners-in-crime Wallace and Mac, Weevil, Dick Casablancas (the harmless and
unintentionally funny California surfer douche, uh, dude), Gia Goodman, and
sleazy PI Vinnie Van Lowe (Ken Marino) whose moniker, like the movie’s murder victim’s stage name, ‘Bonnie DeVille,’ are almost
porn-worthy.While ‘Veronica Mars’ remained
faithful to its small-screen roots and is a noir mystery through and through,
it is also a satire of our celebrity-obsessed culture and provides social commentary
on the divide between classes and cliques.

If you’ve never seen the TV show,
the movie provides a brief exposition at the beginning to set you up nicely for
what is to follow.You’ll find yourself drawn
irresistably into the sordid, corrupt world of Neptune, California, a fictional
seaside community of the rich (the ‘0-9ers’) and downtrodden, a town where many
dark secrets lay hidden, waiting for the light of justice to be shined upon
them by Veronica and her private investigator dad, former sheriff Keith Mars (Enrico
Colantoni).Then, you’ll no doubt want
to watch the TV series to find out how Veronica, who was once a popular girl at
Neptune High, ditched her ‘0-9er’ circle of friends to defend the weak, solve
the murder of her BFF Lilly Kane (Amanda Seyfried), and unravel the mystery of
who caused a bus full of Neptune High students returning from a field-trip to careen
off a mountainside highway into a canyon.

Monday, March 17, 2014

It’s been seven years since Zack
Snyder’s stylish adaptation of Frank Miller’s blood-splashed swords-and-sandals
graphic novel ‘300,’ played to Abs-olute perfection by Gerard Butler, among
others.Loosely based on the epic Battle
of Thermopylae in 480 BC, when 300 Spartan hoplites (and allies which increased
their numbers to around 7,000), sold their lives dearly at a narrow pass
against a Persian army numbering over 100,000.With a worldwide gross of $456 million on a ‘mere’ budget of $65
million, the only surprise is that it took Hollywood this long to make a
sequel.

‘300: Rise of an Empire’ is neither
a sequel nor a prequel, but a ‘in the meantime’-quel which steps back and takes
a look at the bigger picture.You see,
before the 300 Spartans marched off to immortality in the name of democracy and
freedom, an Athenian general named Themistocles tried to forge an alliance with
Sparta to fight the Persians but was rebuffed, as Sparta was fiercely
independent and looked upon the hoplites of other Greek city‑states,
particularly those of cultured Athens, with an attitude bordering on contempt.Even though Themistocles was the hero of the
Battle of Marathon ten years prior and a respected strategist, he could not
persuade Queen Gorgo (King Leonida’s wife played by Lena Headley) to pool the
Spartan ships with Athens’ into a stronger navy.‘300: Rise of an Empire’ recounts the Battle of
Salamis, the naval battle which took place while the Spartans made the
sacrifices necessary for Greece to win the war on land later in the Battle of
Plataea.

Like its predecessor, ‘300: Rise
of an Empire’ is as beautiful and stylish as it is brutal and bloody, filled
with breathtaking poetry and savagery.The battle scenes, rendered in the muted tone that is a common feature of
movies adapted from Frank Miller graphic novels, are mesmerizing to watch, perfectly
choreographed dances-of-death with computer-generated
blood splashes, disembowelments and decapitations.

The movie features two charismatic
and compelling commanders, the aforementioned Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton) and Persian
admiral Artemisia (Eva Green), as they try to outwit and outmaneuver each other
in a battle that was arguably as crucial as the Battle of Thermopylae in saving
Greece.Eva Green delivered a
marvelously malevolent (and sexy) performance as the tragic Artemisia, and I have
not seen a more tenacious or badass villainess since Olga Kurylenko in Neil
Marshall’s historical Roman chase thriller ‘Centurion.’

Since his surprisingly successful
‘Taken’ back in 2008, Liam Neeson has established himself as a popular action
star, and one over 50 no less.The ‘Rob
Roy’ star’s latest actioner, ‘Non-Stop,’ proved once again that he’s a
relatable, tortured and flawed hero with charisma to spare whom we cannot help
but root for.A movie like ‘Non-Stop’ is
supposed to prove that moviegoers have put behind their post-9/11 airplane
hijacking fears, and in spite of Malaysia Flight 370 (which happened after its
release), the movie is doing respectably well at the box office.

As I’m sure you’ve seen from its
trailer, ‘Non-Stop’ is a serial-killer-on-a-plane movie, one of those movies
that you should not even attempt to watch unless you can check your disbelief
out at the door.Your mind has to be
open to all ‘possibilities,’ as unlikely (okay, impossible), as they may
seem.You’re at the movies for
Chrissakes, so stop analyzing already!

And boy, does ‘Non-Stop’ put your
suspension of disbelief to the test.Liam Neeson plays an US Air Marshal who gets mysterious texts on his
cellphone via a ‘private network’ informing him that, unless he wires $150
million to a certain account, a person on the plane he’s on will die every
twenty minutes (all this is clear from the trailer).Yes, we’ve all seen these sadistic
guessing-game whodunit? movies before, but ‘Non-Stop’ gives us a variation so
deviously and delectably delicious with such creeping, palpable and tightly-wound
suspense that I’m going to recommend it, plot-holes and implausibility be
damned.It’s the perfect summer popcorn
movie (in March).I somewhat enjoyed
‘Red Eye’ and ‘Snakes on a mother-#@&%*! Plane’ too, so sue me.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

The Battle
of Stalingrad is the subject of Fyodor Bondarchuck’s full-blooded World War II epic
CTAΛИHГPA∆.This is the fourth film
centering on this pivotal battle of the Eastern Front in the last 25 years,
although each took a different approach.The 1989 two-part movie was ambitious in scope and followed the battle
from beginning to end, while the stoic-yet-powerful 1993 German version told its
story through the German experience. 2001’s somewhat
silly ‘Enemy at the Gates’ was based on a 1973 book which recounts of an
alleged sniper duel between famed Russian sniper Vasily Zaitsev and a German master
sniper named Erwin König or Heinz Thorvald.

Bondarchuk, who previously directed the
Afghanistan anti-war opus ‘9th Company,’ displayed his virtuosity once again in
CTAΛИHГPA∆.Filmed entirely using IMAX 3D digital
technology, the $30-million CTAΛИHГPA∆’s cinematography is simply breathtaking,
with the ruins and shattered landscape of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) rendered
in vivid detail.Loosely based on the
defense of ‘Pavlov’s House,’ in which a small group of Soviet soldiers led by
Sergeant Yakov Pavlov held off repeated German attempts to take it for 58 days,
CTAΛИHГPA∆ perfectly captured the brutality of urban combat,
with some of the most realistic close-quarters battle scenes ever put on screen.Seeing the 5-month long battle in microcosm
through the eyes of a small group of Russian scouts
and a German officer, Hauptmann Kahn (Thomas Kretschmann,
who also played Leutnant Witzland in the 1993 movie), CTAΛИHГPA∆ not only depicted the futility and despair of war but also managed to humanize the opposing sides
without resorting to jingoism.Like 'Enemy at the Gates,' the movie also has an obligatory romantic subplot, but fortunately
it wasn't so overwrought with sentimental melodrama as to detract us from the story.

For
the most part, CTAΛИHГPA∆is historically accurate and authentic in the
uniforms, weapons and equipment during the fall/winter campaign of 1942 Russia,
although the Panzer IV tanks with schurzen which spearheaded the Germans' final assault (they're T-55’s modded as
German tanks) did not appear until later in the war.Also, a German soldier in the movie referred
to Friedrich Paulus (the commander of 6th Army) as ‘Field Marshal,’ even though the
movie's events took place
in November 1942 before the German surrender.There are the notably cheesy ‘Hollywood’
moments as well, such as a scene in which the Russians fired a 45mm anti-tank
gun at a German-controlled building used as a HQ across from them by
richocheting the round off of a knocked-out T-34 tank between them and gave the
Germans shell‑shock.I don’t presume to
be an expert but, assuming they fired an AT shell, would it damage the building
and create shell‑shock?And if it was an
HE round, wouldn’t it have exploded when it strikes the T-34 and never reach the
building across the street?Am I
overanalyzing here?Who cares, CTAΛИHГPA∆ is still better than ‘Enemy at the Gates,’ which
I can never forgive for the stupid scene where Ed Harris ran out of his well-concealed
cover to be shot by Jude Law.